I Am Eve: Emily Dickinson's Identification with Eve in the Genesis Narrative

Nudity, power, beauty, paradise, knowledge, authority, rebellion, anger, punishment,
and injustice: these are all themes that Emily Dickinson.s poetry grapples with and repeatedly
explores. They are also themes that she found in the Genesis narrative of Adam and Eve in
her King James Version of the Bible.

As a central influence in Dickinson.s Nineteenth Century, Puritan, New England
society, the Bible was a primary text at both Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke, where
Dickinson attended (Sewell 362). At home, Dickinson.s father read a chapter a day to his
family (Sewell 694), and at age 14, he gave her a copy of the King James text (Seelbinder 18).

Everyone in her life encouraged Emily Dickinson to study the Bible, hoping it would bring her
close to God and would convince her to join the church. In Dickinson.s hands, however, the
Bible had the opposite effect.
At age sixteen, Emily...